Canada

My husband and I, with a group of friends, traveled to Banff, Canada earlier this month. If you haven’t had a chance to venture that way, I’d highly recommend it. The country (at least the small part we were able to see) is full of beauty in every direction.

Lake Louise is probably one of the most recognizable features in Banff. We thought it was so nice that we visited twice. The first day was rainy and overcast with a few glimpses of sunlight here and there. Since I’m pregnant with twins, I wasn’t able to hike up the trails for any upper views, so I trekked around the lake with my camera for the lower elevation views while the rest of our crew did the teahouse hike. Being from Houston, I’m always amazed to see such beautiful colors in water and how many shades of blue and green you can find, depending on the location and the light.

Another favorite on our trip was the gondola ride to the top of Sulphur Mountain. I wouldn’t recommend it for those with fears of heights, but we loved it. The views from the lookout points at the top were incredible. You could see the whole little town, the castle-like Fairmont Banff Springs hotel, the Bow River, Lake Minnewanka and miles and miles of mountains. Luckily, we were able to enjoy this little touristy gem on a sunny day. We wished we could have caught the full sunset, but the last gondola back down the mountain is about 9:15 p.m. and the sun didn’t set until 10 p.m.
After visiting Johnston Canyon for a shorter hike the next day, we were close enough to go back to Lake Louise to see it on a blue sky, sunny day. We didn’t stay long on this visit, but it was worth it to see the lake again while the sun was shining. If you didn’t see the snow in that second image, I bet you could be fooled into thinking it was the Caribbean.And last, I’m throwing in a wildlife image. Since it isn’t a landscape, it’s the oddball of the blog. But we were able to see quite a bit of wildlife on the trip…a few black bears, lots of deer, some elk, chipmunks and a fox. The black bear was my favorite animal that we spotted, but this elk was our best wildlife sighting that I could capture with my 70-200.